Local

Man sought in shooting death of 4-year-old surrenders

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. - A man wanted for questioning in the shooting death of his girlfriend's 4-year-old son has turned himself in to police, and investigators have now also determined the boy's death was likely accidental.

Trevor Braymiller, 25, called officers Monday afternoon asking to be picked up in the Big Lake area after spending more than 24 hours on the run. Officers say he surrendered peacefully and was unarmed.

Sedro-Woolley police were called to a home in the 1000 block of Township Street Sunday morning after getting a report that a child had been shot. When officers arrived, they found 4-year-old Dwayne Kerrigan fatally wounded in his back bedroom, and the gun's owner, Trevor Braymiller, nowhere to be found.

Initial reports from police Sunday morning said Dwayne had shot himself with a gun. But later that afternoon, Sedro-Woolley police Chief Doug Wood said an initial examination by the medical examiner suggested the boy was shot by someone else and the case would be investigated as a homicide.

But officials reversed course again Monday after seeing results of an autopsy and said it appears Dwayne did indeed shoot himself, as Braymiller had claimed.

The gun they believe was used was found hours later by an explosives-sniffing dog under the stairs of a church about a half-block from the house where the child was shot. No shell casing was found at the scene, but there is one in the gun, indicating that the gun misfired and didn't eject the shell, Lt. Lin Tucker said.

Police were told he went to the nearby church and a friend gave Braymiller a ride to the Big Lake community. The friend went to police after learning the child was dead.

Braymiller, a felon convicted of selling drugs, is not supposed to have a gun, police said. The house is well known to police, and officers conducted a drug raid there in 2011. Police have seized firearms from Braymiller in the past.

No one in the house saw the shooting, Tucker said. Also in the house at the time was the boy's mother, a couple, another young man and a girl about 2 years old who was parented by the mother and Braymiller.

Braymiller was being interviewed by detectives at the Sedro-Woolley police department and then was expected to be booked into the Skagit County Jail.